Slovak Press Photo awarded

FREELANCE photographer Michal Burza won the Grand Prix award of the Slovak Press Photo competition for a picture from the series called Maidan. He and other winners in categories of the third year of this contest received the awards at a ceremony that took place in the Mirror Hall of the Primate’s Palace in Bratislava on October 22.

FREELANCE photographer Michal Burza won the Grand Prix award of the Slovak Press Photo competition for a picture from the series called Maidan. He and other winners in categories of the third year of this contest received the awards at a ceremony that took place in the Mirror Hall of the Primate’s Palace in Bratislava on October 22.

“The competition reaches the world level,” said Paul Martinka, renowned photographer of Slovak origin living in New York who chaired the committee, as quoted by the SITA newswire. He is convinced that all awarded photographers should have a chance to succeed also in the world.

The contestants were allowed to send a series of up to nine pictures to the competition in order to be able to better depict the story. The submitted photos were capturing mostly the situation in Ukraine and the presidential elections, SITA wrote.

Except for the main prize, Burza also won the category News. Second in this category was Matej Kalina from the Plus 7 Dní weekly with the Suite 108 photo, while third became Boris Németh from the Týždeň weekly with a picture called Robert Fico’s election night. The seven-member international jury awarded an honourable mention to freelance photographer Victor Breiner for his photo called Members of the Right Sector at the St Michael’s Cathedral shortly after Maidan fights.

Németh won the category Reportage with the picture from Vasil Biľak’s funeral. He also became third in this category with photo depicting the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Slovak National Uprising. Second became Breiner with picture Kiev on the barricades.

The Daily Life category was won by Lena Jakubčáková with the picture from Grannie from the forest series. Second place was not awarded, while third became Týždeň photographer Matúš Zajac with pictures of 85-year-old priest Anton Srholec who takes care of people without homes, the TASR newswire wrote.

Freelance photographer Daniel Laurinc won the Portrait category with his Roots series, followed by Maňo Štrauch from the Trend weekly who was taking pictures of homeless people within his Yin Yang series. Third became Breiner and his Ukraine – Information warfare series.

In the Sport category, Eduard Genserek won the first place with exotic pictures from the Ethiopian tribe Suri called Saginay ritual fights. Jozef Jakubčo of SITA became second with The Golden Nastya picture, while freelancer Martin Červeňanský was third with pictures from the training of slalom canoeist Katarína Macová.

In the Nature category, freelance photographer Tomáš Hulík got the first prize for his Bowerbirds at Neusiedler See photo. Second became another freelance photographer Timotej Knižka with Duel picture, while third was another freelancer Tomáš Manina with the series of pictures called Water World.

The World of art category was won by freelancer Robert Tappert with his pictures from Decalogue play. Second became Németh with the photo story of Slobodná Európa band, while third was freelance photographer Timotej Knižka with his picture called Permanent exhibition.

Ján Skaličan with his series called The lightness of being became the best among the photographers younger than 25 years. He was followed by Natália Hlavičková with her Come closer essay about love and Dominika Jackuliaková with pictures from the Botanical Garden.

The fact that this category was of a high quality was proved by two Honourable mention awards: one for Sabina Djasníková for her Identity of a university student series and the other for Manina for The building of Slovakia series, TASR wrote.

The new category, Central European photography, was won by three Czechs. First placed Eva Skaláková for the Poster-boy story, followed by Patrik Sláma with Vanishing screams series and Martin Holík with the picture Volcán de Pacaya. Honourable mention award went to Polish photographer Marcin Lachowitz for a series called Birkenau concentration camp, which depicted the story of a man who survived the Holocaust and visited the concentration camp as part of his education activities, as reported by TASR.

The one-year grant from the city of Bratislava at €2,000 went to Peter Korček of Život weekly for his Jungle City series. The honourable mention from Bratislava’s mayor was won by freelance photographer Drahotín Šila for a series of pictures of the Petržalka district.

The competition was attended by a total of 113 photographers, of whom 16 were from abroad, with altogether 1,115 photos. The jury was composed of Martinka, Russian photographer Yuri Kozyrev, Czech photographers Jindřich Štreit, Jan Šibík and Roman Vondrouš, Slovak photographer Jana Hojstričová and TASR photographer Pavel Neubauer.

The exhibition of the winning pictures is open to visitors at the Bratislava City Museum until November 30.

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